The purpose of this study was to implement four methods of patient education in an ambulatory care setting and to evaluate their relative effectiveness in improving patients' knowledge of and compliance with prescribed medical regimens. The four methods of patient education eval-uated in this study are: 1) written information only; 2) written and verbal information presented in a non-private area; 3) written and verbal information presented in a private area; and 4) written information with verbal information presented by telephone. The effectiveness of these four methods was evaluated against two control groups who received no information on their medication
